The Bartlett Policy Support Fund

Academic Lead: Professor Cassidy Johnson, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU)

This policy project aims to work with the World Health Organization (WHO) Healthy Cities Program, which focuses on the development of urban areas and villages with a one health perspective, considering the city as a living organism. Within the context of this program, cities can develop a city health profile based on the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats and develop a city health development plan. The WHO has prepared a series of guidance reports to assist cities in this process, including a first report  Urban planning, design and management approaches to building resilience ʹ an evidence review, a second report based on the experiences of building resilience across 12 cities, and a third report which reviews of indicator frameworks for supporting urban planning for resilience, plus a fourth summative report with key messages. This project aims to bring together local, national and international policy actors to consider and discuss principles and key arguments for healthy safe and resilient cities across Türkiye.

Project Partners:

WHO European Healthy Cities Network
Turkish Healthy Cities Association
Health and Climate Change Association (Türkiye)
Chambre of Urban Planners Türkiye

Academic Lead: Dr Hanna Baumann, The UCL Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP)

Working with Camden Council and local community organisations, this project will enable the collaborative design and build of a communal food space with asylum seekers and long-term Camden residents. It will allow The Bartlett's research to influence policy on how to redesign food systems at the urban scale for increased equity, inclusion and sustainability. By expanding existing collaborations and building on novel initiatives at both partner organisations, the project will develop shared visions for more inclusive urban food futures, and test impactful solutions to local inequalities. The resulting co-designed space and findings will be disseminated widely to local authorities, so that newly developed approaches can be replicated and scaled up.

Project Partners:

Camden Council: Food Mission, Community Partnership and Refugee Teams
Madeleine Kessler Architecture
Somers Town Community Centre

Academic Lead: Professor Haim Yacobi, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU)

The main objective of “Modernist Architecture in Marrakech” is to democratize access to the city's modernist cultural wealth, and to transform public policy towards modernist architectural heritage in the city. This involves creating a repository accessible to all, irrespective of their background or interests, ensuring that modernist architectural heritage is preserved and becomes a shared experience for a diverse audience. Importantly, this project is not merely an archival effort but a policy-oriented project, as it seeks to demonstrate the benefits of embracing digital tools in transforming public policy towards the built environment in Marrakech, serving as a model for future initiatives within Morocco and beyond

Project Partners:

Prof Safiya El Ghmari, Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering et Architecture, International University of Rabat
MAMMA
UN Habitat
Marrakech’s Development Authority - Agence Urbaine de Marrakech
UIR UNESCO Chair & ESAR

Academic Lead: Dr Ke (Koko) Zhou, UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering

Abstract: The UK has been a prominent actor in advancing towards environmental neutrality, where both terminology and policy discussions have evolved significantly. The achievement of environmental neutrality depends on two key aspects: 1) the impacts of human activities on the system; and 2) strategies for mitigation or offset impacts to counteract. Such a shift towards the neutrality-oriented policy concepts is observed in not just carbon emissions (e.g., net zero and climate neutral) but also areas such as water usage (e.g., water neutrality) and biodiversity conservation (e.g., biodiversity net gain). This neutral approach reorients policy objectives from simply achieving mitigation targets alone to a dynamic view of the discrepancies between the potential impacts and the mitigation targets over time. In this project, we examine current neutrality-policy perspectives through a system dynamics simulation approach. This approach enables the capture of dynamic mechanisms inherent in policy targets and provides simulation-based tools to explore the dynamics of neutrality in various scenarios. We also explore the role of systems thinking in support neutrality-oriented policies in practice.

Project Partners: 

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Environment Agency, emphasizing Water Neutrality 
Government Office for Science

Academic lead: Dr Daniel Durrant, The Bartlett School of Planning (BSP)

This proposal aims to deliver a workshop and report that will create new relationships through opening a dialogue between academics and policymakers on the limits and risks of pursuing economic growth as an objective of planning policy and practice.

Activities:

Workshop between policymakers and academics.
Facilitated discussion based upon themes identified in the planning meeting
A report circulated to participants and beyond in order to speak further debate to engage with the wider planning community.

Policy Partners:

Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), University of Surrey
Tower Hamlets Council

Academic lead: Dr Liza Griffin, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) 

The overall aim of this project is to use arts-based policy engagement to help foster better working relationships between policymakers at the local, regional, and national levels in UK fisheries. Our proposed arts-based policy engagement will involve reflection and directed discussion between a small group of invited stakeholders representing national, regional and local levels of public policy and the fishing industry around a creative artefact called a 'sonic postcard'.

Policy Partners:

National: DEFRA, Natural England
Regional: Eastern Inshore and Conservation Fisheries Authority
Local: North Norfolk Fishermen’s Society and a group of Wells fishers

Academic lead: Dr Lucy Natarajan, The Bartlett School of Planning (BSP)

This project focused on building the relationship with non-European policy-makers who are working on Inclusive Recovery strategies. Following earlier work with European colleagues for urban action through participatory modes, and a Charter (ratified by the EC) and more recent work towards a wider International Framework as part of the recovery strategy of the UN Habitats Professionals Forum (UN-HPF), this project will create relationships for working towards the next World Urban Forum (WUF 12) by setting up exchanges under the title UN-HPF International Recovery Series on Proposition 3, which can kick start policy relationships for the longer term.

Policy Partners:

UN’s Habitat Professionals Forum – Global partner
Territoire Europe - European partner
SACPLAN – Global South partner
Com Habitat – Global Partner

Academic lead: Dr Jane Wong, The Bartlett School of Architecture (BSA) 

The project brings together policymakers, academics and practitioners, including architects, urban designers, public health experts, engagement facilitators and public realm experts to develop strategic guidance for codesign at local governance level. The London and Bremen teams are building upon the recently completed research ‘Towards Spatial Justice: A guide for meaningful participation in co- design processes’ (2023) through a series of peer reviews and live-project testing co-design guidance and tools of the report.

Policy Partners: 

Good Growth by Design Programme, Greater London Authority
Projektbüro Innenstadt Bremen